We installed the free version of Tutor LMS on a clean WordPress site, built a paid course, bought it as a student, approved the payment and finished the course. This review is what we found: what the free plugin does well, what is locked behind Pro, and the small things that would trip you up on a real site.
The short verdict
- Who it suits: course creators who want a modern student area and a built-in checkout without installing WooCommerce.
- What’s free: a course builder, lessons with video, quizzes with four question types, a cart and checkout, PayPal, manual payments, orders and coupons.
- What isn’t: Stripe and other card gateways, certificates, assignments, content drip, free preview lessons, manual enrollment and automated emails all need Pro.
- Price of Pro: from $199 a year for one site, or $499 once for a lifetime license (checked October 4, 2026).
On this page
How we tested
- Versions: Tutor LMS 4.1.0, the free plugin from WordPress.org, on WordPress 7.1.2 and PHP 8.3, with the default Twenty Twenty-Five theme and no other plugins.
- Setup: a private test install on our own machine. We judged features and workflow, not speed: a local test site says nothing about how fast your hosting will be.
- What we did: built a $49 course with one topic, two lessons and a quiz; registered as a student; paid by bank transfer; marked the order as paid in the admin; then took the quiz and completed the course as the student.
- Independence: Themeum didn’t pay for this review or provide a license, and this page has no affiliate links.
Building a course
Tutor’s course builder is a full-screen editor with three steps: Basics, Curriculum and Additional. The Basics step puts everything a sales page needs on one screen: title, description, difficulty level, a featured image, an intro video (uploaded or from a URL), categories, tags and the price. Paid courses get a regular price and an optional sale price.
The Curriculum step is where Tutor shines. You add topics, then lessons and quizzes inside each topic, and drag them into order. Each topic, lesson and quiz is saved as soon as you finish it, with a confirmation message.
The crowns in that screenshot are a theme you’ll see throughout the free version. Interactive Quiz, Assignment and Content Bank are Pro features: they’re shown, but locked.
Lessons take written content, a video by upload or URL, a playback time and downloadable exercise files. Two options in the lesson editor are Pro-only: H5P content, and Lesson Preview, which lets visitors try a lesson before they buy. Free previews are one of the best ways to sell a course, so this is a notable gap.
Watch out for: in our test, when we added a second lesson straight after the first, the form opened with the first lesson’s name and text still filled in. It may be a one-off, but check each field before you save.
The third step, Additional, holds the “What will I learn”, target audience, duration, materials and requirements fields that appear on the course page. Everything else on that screen (certificates, prerequisites, course attachments and live classes) is Pro. The small sparkle icons next to the title and description open an upgrade prompt for Tutor’s AI Studio, which is also Pro and, according to Tutor’s pricing page, needs your own OpenAI API key.
Quizzes
The free version includes four question types: True/False, Multiple Choice, Open Ended/Essay and Fill in the Blanks. Short Answer and all eight interactive types (Matching, Image Answering, Ordering, Image Marking, Range, Pin, Graph and Puzzle) are Pro, as is reusing questions from a content bank.
The quiz settings are generous for a free plugin. You can randomize the question order, allow multiple attempts, show a random set of questions from a larger pool, set a passing grade (80% by default), add a time limit, show one question per page or all at once, and reveal the answers after submission.
Two defaults are worth changing:
- Answer Required is off. Our first attempt was submitted with no answer selected, and Tutor accepted it as a failed attempt marked “No Questions Answered”. Switch Answer Required on for questions that matter.
- Multiple attempts are off. After that failed attempt there was no retake button. As the admin, we had to delete the attempt under Quiz Attempts before the student could try again.
Students get a clear results page with their score, the pass mark, the time taken and a review of each answer.
Selling courses with the free version
Tutor has its own shop system, so you don’t need WooCommerce to sell courses. The free version creates cart and checkout pages and adds Orders and Coupons to the admin menu.
The limitation is payments. Out of the box, the free version offers PayPal and manual payments such as bank transfer. Tutor’s documentation lists many more gateways, including Stripe, Paddle, Mollie, Razorpay and Paystack, but in the free plugin the “Add New Gateway” button is locked to Pro. If you want to take card payments through Stripe, budget for Pro.
The checkout works, but it’s heavy for a digital product. Every billing field except state is required, including a phone number and a street address, and the free version has no setting to remove them. The only checkout options are a coupon field and a “Buy Now” button that skips the cart.
Manual payments are handled from the order screen. Our bank-transfer order arrived as Unpaid and Incomplete. Clicking Mark as paid enrolled the student straight away, and added a Refund button and an entry in the order’s activity log.
Watch out for: while the order was unpaid, the course page showed our student the Add to Cart button again, with nothing to say their payment was pending. If you accept bank transfers, say in the payment instructions how long approval takes.
What students see
Tutor 4 has a redesigned learning area. Lessons sit in a sidebar with a progress bar and a label for each item (Reading or Quiz), and students move through the course with Mark as Complete and Next. Quizzes open in a focused screen without the sidebar. In our test, the student pages used a dark design.
When the student finishes the course, Tutor asks for a review. In our test the rating was preset to “Poor” (one star), and the review text was required. A student who clicks through quickly could leave a one-star review by accident, so keep an eye on your first ratings.
The student dashboard shows enrolled, active and completed courses and time spent. Our test student spent a few minutes in the course, but the dashboard showed “1 h+”, which matches the duration we set for the course rather than the time actually spent.
Free vs Pro at a glance
| Feature | Free | Pro |
|---|---|---|
| Course builder, lessons, video, exercise files | Yes | Yes |
| Question types | 4 basic types | All 13 types, plus a question bank |
| Quiz grading, attempts, time limits, question pools | Yes | Yes |
| Cart, checkout, orders, coupons | Yes | Yes |
| PayPal and manual payments | Yes | Yes |
| Stripe and other payment gateways | No | Yes |
| Free preview lessons | No | Yes |
| Content drip | No | Yes |
| Certificates | No | Yes |
| Assignments | No | Yes |
| Manual enrollment | No | Yes |
| Automated emails, notifications, reports, gradebook | No | Yes |
| Zoom, Google Meet and Google Classroom | No | Yes |
| Course bundles, subscriptions, prerequisites | No | Yes |
| AI Studio | No | Yes, with your own OpenAI API key |
Pricing
Tutor LMS Pro has three plans, each sold yearly or as a one-time lifetime license. These prices are from tutorlms.com on October 4, 2026 and exclude VAT.
| Plan | Sites | Yearly | Lifetime |
|---|---|---|---|
| Individual | 1 | $199 | $499 |
| Business | Up to 10 | $399 | $999 |
| Agency | Unlimited (yearly), up to 50 (lifetime) | $799 | $1,999 |
Every plan includes all the Pro add-ons and a 30-day money-back guarantee. If you expect to run your course site for more than two and a half years, the lifetime Individual license costs less than renewing the yearly one.
Who should use Tutor LMS?
Best for: course creators who want a modern-looking academy, are happy to take payments through PayPal (or to pay for Pro), and like building courses in a visual editor. With Pro, it’s a strong all-round choice for sites with several instructors.
Look elsewhere if you need certificates without paying: LifterLMS includes them in its free core. If you’d rather have one mature paid plugin, look at LearnDash, and if your shop already runs on WooCommerce, Sensei LMS fits that setup. Our WordPress LMS plugins comparison covers all of them.
Verdict
The free version of Tutor LMS is enough to build and sell a simple course. The builder is quick, the quizzes are flexible, and you can take PayPal or manual payments without any other plugin. It isn’t a complete course business in a box, though: card payments through Stripe, certificates, drip schedules, free previews and automated emails are all Pro, so most serious sellers will end up paying. If that’s your plan, the free version is a good way to test the workflow before you buy.
FAQ
Is Tutor LMS free?
Yes. The core plugin is free on WordPress.org. Tutor LMS Pro, which unlocks the add-ons, starts at $199 a year.
Can the free version take payments with Stripe?
Not in our test. The free version offered PayPal and manual payments; the button to add other gateways, including Stripe, was locked to Pro.
Does the free version issue certificates?
No. Certificates are a Pro add-on.
Do I need WooCommerce to sell courses with Tutor LMS?
No. Tutor has its own cart, checkout and orders, which we used for this review.